The long awaited EU Small Business Act was unveiled this week, which hopefully will persuade member state governments to make more efforts in putting small businesses first, thus helping to create a better environment for small businesses to prosper. However, some groups have already criticised the lack of effort from European lawmakers in coming to terms with the perennial problem of late trade payments. This was an area that was supposed to be tackled more seriously in this new ACT, but wasn't.
According to a recent survey undertaken by the small business champions the Forum of Private Business, 81% of respondents said that trade payments had deteriorated in the last year, and more worryingly, 33% said that because of this issue, they were in danger of going into administration, through lack of cash flow. Helping small businesses by reducing administrative burden, providing better access to finance and public procurement are all to be welcomed, but the big issue of delayed payments remains to be tackled by lawmakers both here in the UK and in Brussels, judging by this latest piece of legislation.